Bring back CEEFAX now!

3 months ago

For me the pinnacle of Television was CEEFAX. CEEFAX was amazing. You might get all excited about the internet and all that chilly sum total of all human knowledge and opinion that it contains but from nineteen seventy-four onwards till two thousand and twelve there was a system of information and communication that was unbridled in its brilliance and succinctness. Admittedly it worked on an analog signal and you’d have needed the services of a TV Aerial Installation Swansea based firm like https://www.onevisionltd.co.uk/tv-aerial-installation-swansea/ to make sure you were getting a crisp signal.

CEEFAX had everything. News national, local and international, recipes, games, the arrival times of flights into UK airports no matter what time of day and football results. Many are the happy hour I have spent in the pub watching the CEEFAX update for the Premier league desperate for the words Shearer 5 indicating a goal or Campbell Off 75 meaning that Arsenal was down to ten men. The last minute holiday deals were legendary. Whilst it may not have been the all singing all dancing world wide web at least you didn’t have loads of pop up adverts with ridiculously made up idiots saying “hey guys check out this latest product from Max Factor!”, when you’re trying to read something about the situation in the Central African Republic or the Roman coin a Dog walker unearthed in Ashby De La Zouch.

It was truly innovative and the world’s first teletext system used for general purpose. It only came about when a Director General at the BBC thought it was a good idea to broadcasting prices of Stock market information and farming trade prices. He wanted a newspaper that could be transmitted after the National anthem had been played and the BBC closed down for the night. This simple system mushroomed into the got to place for breaking news and weather for the next 38 years. Naturally, ITV tried to get in on the act with their Oracle system and the two needed to be made compatible. Channel Four soon had one after its launch and they created the incredibly popular BamberBoozler daily quiz of Bamboozle. The BBC’s 1 and 2 content differed depending on what channel you were on and it was a nice shade of blue and yellow hue which was strangely comforting. The chunky pixel block system was used to great effect to create pictures; one famously featured Goldie the Blue Peter Dog attempting to touch a Koi Carp in the Italian Sunken garden section’s water feature.

It may have been simple but there was no chance of any fake news slipping in or click bait items. I really miss it.